Why not just feed zoo animals whatever they eat in the wild? Michael Maslanka, who oversees the feeding of the 2,000 animals at the National Zoo, representing 400 species, gets that question a lot.

We all had to make adjustments as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded – even zoo animals who were suddenly not seeing crowds of visitors pass by every single day. In a study published in 2022, researchers ...

For zoo animals, Petersen says, "the food they're eating is parasite-free and probably not heavily bacterially contaminated". Compare that to a bacteria-smothered cadaver a lion would eat in the ...